Walla Walla Solar Farm Helps Australia’s GRS Seal Year with Almost 2 GW Pipeline at Hometurf

Australia’s largest EPC firm GRS, a part of Gransolar Group, has entered into an agreement with renewable energy Independent Power Producer Fotowatio Renewable Ventures Australia (FRV Australia) to build the Walla Walla solar plant. The plant, which is to come up in New South Wales, will boast of a capacity of 300 MWac.

Walla Walla is the result of a collaboration between Gransolar Group, which will form a joint venture with CHINT Solar/Astronergy, and renewable energy solutions developer Fotowatio Renewable Ventures Australia (FRV Australia), co-owned by Abdul Latif Jameel Energy and Canadian fund OMERS.

The solar farm, supplied with solar trackers from PV Hardware, will be located 4 kilometers from the town of Walla Walla and about 40 kilometers north of Albury, and will contribute to powering the electric grid. The project will comprise close to 700,000 solar panels with singe axis tracking and have a yearly output of 720,000 megawatt hours.

FRV has confirmed that the project will create 250 jobs during the construction phase. Besides, between three and four professionals will be employed permanently for operation and maintenance tasks that will follow. In addition, several agreements will be reached with local companies in the area for specific jobs.

Gransolar says that it works on the philosophy of contributing to the economic development of the areas in which it operates, in this case an area populated by the Wiradjuri people. The said project aligns with its vision.

Carlos López, Managing Director of Gransolar Group in Australia, highlighted the importance of working with significant partners like FRV to contribute to the country’s goal of sustainability, “Solar PV is set to play a leading role in Australia’s accelerating transformation, and Gransolar is very proud to be able to contribute our expertise to projects of the importance of Walla Walla.”

As mentioned before, the Walla Walla project is an ambitious one which will help the Australian Government achieve the challenge of installing more than 60 million 500-watt solar panels by 2030. Half a million of these will already be installed in Walla Walla.

GRS’ presence at hometurf 

Gransolar Group maintains that it has been eyeing the objective of reducing dependence on fossil fuels and is dedicated to the penetration of renewable energies instead. The new project in the portfolio of GRS will aid its energy transition in Australia where it has already established a strong presence. The said project will be GRS’ 13th photovoltaic project in Australia.

Currently, GRS has close to 2 GWp of capacity in Australia, where it is the leading EPC contractor and offers services related to engineering along with solar trackers, and storage solutions.

The pipeline has seen an increase with the recent addition of the Blue Grass plant (200 MW) for X-Elio- among Queensland’s 50 large-scale renewable projects. The pipeline is set to growth further in the coming time once the Wellington North (425 MW) and Wunghnu (90 MW) plants for Lightsource bp, that are presently under construction, reach completion.

GRS, which specialises in building photovoltaic solar plants and connecting them to the grid, currently has 117 plants that operate all over the world. With 2.5 GW of installed capacity worldwide already in its portfolio, another 2 GW is under development. With respect to O&M line, the firm operates around 2 GW.

As for FRV, the firm says that it expects investment worth $US 1.5 billion in asset and infrastructure to accelerate its installed capacity to double to around 4 GW by 2024.